I want God to ignite my words with a match made in Heaven so that they burn in the heart of everyone who reads them or hears them, making them a furnace that spreads God’s warmth and light around the world.

What if salvation isn’t an emotional experience with God at an altar? What if it isn’t choosing to respond to an altar call and/or repeating a prayer that someone else feeds you the words? What if , instead, salvation is an ongoing, transformational relationship with God that lasts the rest of your life?

When you read the Book of Acts and the Epistles you soon realize that a Christian is a Christaholic — someone who is completely overcome with and controlled by the living, resurrected Jesus. A Christaholic is totally addicted to Christ.

When a group of alcoholics started a recovery group in 1935 AD at Akron, Ohio, they called it Alcoholics Anonymous (AA). They wanted to keep it quiet and to keep their names out of sight. However, when Jesus started His recovery group in about 30 AD in Galilee and Jerusalem, He told His followers to come out of the closet with their status and to go into all the world and shout it from the house tops — Christaholics Out of the Closet (COC).

Christ wanted His followers to make a fuss about Him and His salvation. And they did. An anonymous person (perhaps from Britain) said this about the early Christians: “Everywhere they went there was either a revival or a riot; but everywhere I go people want to have a tea party.”

Catherine Booth, co-founder of The Salvation Army, put it this way: “Thrust the truth upon the attention of your fellow men.”

And Jesus put it this way: “”I tell you, whoever publicly acknowledges me before others, the Son of Man will also acknowledge before the angels of God. But whoever disowns me before others will be disowned before the angels of God.”

Are you a Christaholic like the early Christians? So addicted to Jesus Christ that you continually crave a closer relationship with Him and are continually out of the closet publicly acknowledging your hunger for Him?

Advertisements

Share this:

Like this:

LikeLoading...

Related

About Steve Simms

I like to look and think outside the box. In college I encountered Jesus Christ and I have been passionate about trying to get to know Him better ever since. My wife and I co-lead a non-traditional expression of the body of Christ in Nashville based on open participation and Spirit-led sharing. We long to see the power and passion of the first Christ-followers come to life in our time. I have written a book about our experiences called, "Beyond Church: An Invitation To Experience The Lost Word Of The Bible--Ekklesia" that is available in Kindle & paperback @ http://amzn.to/2nCr5dP